I can’t remember why I took such a long break from this series – there were a few months when I didn’t watch it at all, before picking it up again sometime this year. But I still get a strong impulse to watch it whenever I cook food, perhaps a habit, but perhaps also influenced by the importance of food in the series (they provide motifs for a lot of episodes and the episodes are named after food).

Basically, the series has found its feet here, but I feel it’s still far too full of cringe humour for my liking at the end of the day. Josh, the main character, is insufferable, to be honest, constantly nagging other characters for attention and validation.

I like how it deals very frankly and directly with mental illness. But it often goes from these moments straight back into something very cringeworthy for comedy’s sake, and perhaps back again, even ending one episode with the surprise suicide of a side character – I said in the review of the last season that I was annoyed that my favourite character had been killed off by the show, and this is the same. I think the tone wasn’t consistent in this area. Balance is important.

But it’s got some high points – Josh and his mum in the wilderness of Tasmania was a really nice episode, and I liked the introduction of Arnold, who as far as I know will end up with Josh in the next season.

Despite its negative points, I still identify with a lot of the characters and recognize the situations. I’ll still be continuing with the next season. Soon, perhaps!

creator: Josh Thomas
language: English with a bit of Thai
length: 6 episodes of 28 minutes each
finished on: 7 July 2016

This series was swept up in my quest to consume all LGBT media in the world – it’s been around for a while now and is often recommended by the places that recommend LGBT media, but it was after I came to Japan and I never had easy access to it. I think you can pay for a premium service to watch it online, or something.

I actually started watching it before, but only got a few minutes into the first episode – I think I found the main character, an autobiographical depiction of creator and principal actor Josh Thomas, too awkward and annoying. I still kind of think that, but this time I persevered and got through the first season pretty quickly. I started the second, but I stalled on the third episode or so – I should pick it up again.

The awkwardness doesn’t really let up, though. Josh’s character is one that gets anxious over unimportant things – he also moves robotically. I was at some points internally screaming at him to get over himself.

He has a boyfriend for the majority of the first season, but they’re obviously completely different kinds of people. I instantly distrusted the boyfriend when he outed him to his parents – like, have some respect for your compatriots and understand that you may not know as much about others’ situations as you think. I know it’s a sitcom in which everyone is awkward, but there’s basic gay decorum and this is breaking it. I also found it jarring how quickly he was referred to as a boyfriend. They barely fooled around in the first episode, and in the second they were in a relationship. I think the show was going for something like a slice of life, in this case.

Aside from him, though, I enjoyed the rest of the characters, especially the homophobic aunt, but also the mentally ill mum. I found a lot of them were also true to life. I also enjoyed the series in general, I think (aside from the awkwardness) it was well-observed and the jokes were frequent. And like with a lot of the other things I’ve written about recently, I liked to be reminded that LGBT stuff is becoming more mainstream, to the extent that there are actually TV shows like this at all. When I was growing up there was only Queer As Folk (though I like it, it’s decidedly not suitable for younger teens). Nice to have more variety now. The genre is still a niche, but perhaps that’ll always be the case.